Child 44 ****

Short Take: Based on the first book in Tom Rob Smith’s trilogy, Child 44 tells the story of a disillusioned MGB agent in Stalinist Russia who stumbles onto the path of a serial child killer.

REEL TAKE: At press time Child 44 is still in theatres in Asheville, but by the time this issue comes out it may be gone. If, on the off chance it is still out come May 1 and you have any interest in it, see it quickly. The film has a staggeringly low 25% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So why even bother to include it? If you’ve read Reel Takes for a while you know that the Good Professor Kaufmann and I like to champion films that either don’t get a fair shake or the PR that they deserve. For me Child 44 is one of those films.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House and Easy Money) and based on the novel by Tom Rob Smith, Child 44 is a historical thriller based in 1950s Russia in the brutal days of Stalinism. Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) is a war hero and MGB agent. On the surface he is the picture perfect exactor of Stalinistic Russia. Below the surface hides a Ukrainian orphan, a man who upholds the tenants of Stalinism as a means of survival only. Leo is terribly in love with his wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace), a school teacher who seems to only thinly veil her contempt of Stalinism and her husband.

When his best friend’s son (his own godson) is found dead near a train track, hushed rumors of murder swirl. When his wife is accused of being a traitor, he refuses to denounce her. Leo’s carefully crafted and curated world is turned upside down and they are exiled to a bleak industrial outpost run by General Mikhail Nesterov (Gary Oldman). There Leo discovers a series of deaths, all matching his godson’s. What ensues is the hunt for a serial killer, the desperate attempt to prove corruption among MGB officer ranks and the opportunity to win his wife’s love.

Sounds pretty good – so what’s wrong with it? It’s a hot mess. As I watched the multifaceted story unfold I thought this must have been an amazing book. The difficult task of adapting a book for big screen is streamlining a book for feature film. Here Espinosa and his screenwriters tried to include way, way, way too much of the book in the film. It’s too long, there are way too many things going on, the pacing is off, and the accents are all over the map. But here’s the kicker… the fact that any of it worked, in spite of everything it had going against it, means it’s really quite good. It also had more staying power than the average film. The grim portrait it paints of that era in Russian history is fascinating to those of us that can’t imagine living in such a society.

Hardy has worked with several of the other cast members in previous films and this works well for the film, especially the re-teaming of him with Noomi Rapace (they starred in The Drop together – one of my favorite films of 2014). Their relationship is one of the many elements of the story that makes Child 44 worthwhile and actually quite good.

Rated R for violence, some disturbing images, language and a scene of sexuality

Review by Michelle Keenan

Ex Machina **** ½

Short Take: Essentially a 21st century reworking of Frankenstein, Ex Machina is my kind of sci-fi movie with thoughtful subject matter trumping endless action sequences.

REEL TAKE: Ex Machina is an engrossing, intelligent sci-fi flick that shows what you can do with a little money, a good screenplay, and committed performances. It tells the story of a brilliant but unbalanced creator (Oscar Isaac), his beautiful robot creation (Alicia Vikander), and the innocent young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) brought in to evaluate her intelligence.

Ex Machina marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Alex Garland who wrote the 2 fascinating sci-fi features 28 Days Later and Sunshine for Irish director Danny Boyle. While he lacks Boyle’s directorial panache, his low key, matter-of-fact approach enhances the feel of this three character drama which takes place in a claustrophobic, ultramodern setting.

Brilliant but eccentric tech CEO Nathan (Oscar Issac) invites talented young programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) to his private retreat which is completely cut off from the outside world. The reason for the invitation is so that Caleb, a tech geek himself, can evaluate Nathan’s latest attempt at artificial intelligence, a beautiful but obviously robotic android named Ava.

Over the course of a series of interviews with Ava, Caleb finds himself falling in love. He also becomes extremely wary of Nathan who is brilliant but erratic and a borderline alcoholic. He is also warned about Nathan’s duplicity by Ava who dreams of being outside the compound and interacting with other humans.

As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that all is not what it seems and writer-director Alex Garland has a few aces up his sleeve. It’s not what happens but how it happens that is the movie’s raison d’etre. He utilizes elements of Frankenstein as well as aspects of the Greek myth of Prometheus. Throw in the occasional biblical reference and you have an absorbing movie experience.

Greatly aiding the movie’s sense of unease is the music score by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, the crisp, no-nonsense photography of Rob Hardy, and Nathan’s isolated retreat which is actually a landscape hotel in Norway although after seeing Ex Machina, I definitely won’t be going there anytime soon.

Seeing the film took me back to the late 1950s and 1960s where stories in Galaxy magazine and episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits focused on science-fiction scenarios dominated by ideas and not by special effects. Stanley Kubrick unintentionally changed that with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He gave us ideas AND special effects but it was only the latter that took hold.

Ex Machina has a cinematic pedigree going all the way back to Metropolis in 1927. Only time will tell if Ex Machina will become a sci-fi classic. I’m still debating it but if you want to see it to decide for yourself you’d better hurry. This movie is sadly no longer mainstream fare and one that is, the next Avengers movie, is just around the corner.

Rated R for graphic nudity, language, sexual references, and violence.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Furious 7 ****

Short Take: This latest installment of the venerable franchise may not be the best of the series but it’s certainly the biggest, which will send fans into orbit while others will go along for the ride.

REEL TAKE: The saga of the Fast & Furious series shows that try as you might, you just cannot predict pop culture. You can try and influence it and many people frequently succeed but sometimes the least likely candidate can become a cultural phenomenon. Right now I’m thinking of Star Wars which started out in 1977 as a one shot, modestly budgeted homage to the 1930s serial Flash Gordon. Now look at it.

The same is true of F&F. What started in 2001 as another one shot film about fast cars, hot women, and really macho guys, made back its cost on opening weekend and went on to gross over 3 times that much. The inevitable sequels followed with diminishing returns as the budgets got larger and larger and the total box office got smaller and smaller. The films still made money and had their devoted fans but they were running out of steam.

Then in 2013 Furious 6 appeared and the once bad boy street guys were transformed into bad good guys with families who helped various government agencies go after extreme criminal elements in other countries. Sort of a Mission Impossible on non-stop wheels. This proved to be the most successful outing yet earning $800 million worldwide as now F&F had gone global in a big way.

Plans for Furious 7 were immediately drawn up and shooting got underway when tragedy struck. On November 30, 2013 co-star Paul Walker was ironically killed in a fiery car crash with only half of his scenes completed. At first the movie was going to be scrapped but Universal and the cast decided to go ahead and finish it to give Walker a proper send off. Body doubles including two of Walker’s brothers were used and the end result is seamless.

For what it’s worth, the plot is as follows. The principal villain of Furious 6 was left comatose and now his older brother (a perfectly cast Jason Statham) wants revenge. He begins to stalk the members of the F&F gang vowing to get them all. Throw in a super weapon that both the government and a group of terrorists are trying to get their hands on and you have 140 minutes of mostly non-stop action with eye popping stunts.

It’s long, it’s loud, and it’s beyond belief but if you go in for this sort of thing, you’ll more than get your money’s worth. I was expecting popcorn entertainment in the megawatt range and that is exactly what I got. So many films promise more than they deliver. That is definitely not the case with Furious 7.

Rated PG-13 for frenetic sequences of violence, action, and mayhem, suggestive content and strong language.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

True Story *** ½

Short Take: Based on a – wait for it – true story, a disgraced journalist forms a strange alliance with a man accused of murdering his family.

REEL TAKE: For something that’s supposed to be so black and white, the truth can be awfully grey sometimes. This is certainly the case with True Story. The film is adapted from Mike Finkel’s book Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa. Finkel was an award-winning journalist with the New York Times until he was unceremoniously sacked for fabricating a story for impact. The facts were true, but he manipulated the framework of the story.

After the Times sends him packing, he flees to his girlfriend’s log cabin in rural Montana. There he learns that a man accused of murdering his wife and three children has been posing as Mike Finkel. Curious, he confronts Christian Longo (the accused killer’s real name) and the two begin a correspondence. Fascinated by Longo, Finkel sees him as his ticket to journalistic redemption. As he and Longo get to know each other, Finkel grapples with not only the truth (is he or isn’t he guilty?) but also how to tell the truth. This is one of the films greatest strengths.

The last time Franco and Hill shared the screen together it was for the hilarious, albeit not-for-everybody, apocalyptic comedy This is the End. While both have proved their dramatic acting chops previously, True Story places Hill in leading man territory. Franco draws the audience in with his lazy lidded, creepy stares and enigmatic air, but it’s ultimately Hill’s picture. With this under their belts, I’m curious to see what they’ll both do next.

True Story also marks the directorial debut for British theatre director Rupert Goold. His theatre background lends itself nicely here, deftly crafting the scenes between Hill and Franco. Goold also collaborated on the screenplay with Finkel and David Kajganich. The results here are a little more mixed. Most of the scenes are strong, but it struck me that some of the dialogue may have played out better on a stage.

The weakest element of the film and story (at least as it is here; I have not read Finkel’s source material) is the development, or rather lack thereof with Mike’s girlfriend Jill, played by Felicity Jones (who most recently earned an Oscar nomination for playing Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything). Her character is used so ineffectually throughout the entire film, save for one scene, where she delivers a deliciously verbal walloping to Longo. Jones and Hill also seemed to have a complete lack of chemistry which made them seem implausible as a unit. When the murderer has better chemistry with his dead wife, a character shown only in flashbacks, something’s not quite right.

Whether the film truly cuts it as a suspense thriller is debatable, or is at least a matter of opinion. For me True Story excels as a character study; a disgraced journalist seeking redemption and a brutal murderer seeking a verdict of innocence. It seems both are seeking justification and perhaps vindication in the other. Hill and Franco engage in a battle of hubris and ego. The result is an unlikely friendship that is strangely fascinating.

The next time we see Hill and Franco together onscreen they’ll likely be up to their more familiar antics, but funny or serious and contrary to many a critic, I like them. True story.

Rated R for language and some disturbing material.

Review by Michelle Keenan

While We’re Young **** ½

Short Take: Life as they know it is reinvigorated and turned on its ear when a 40-something couple befriends a bohemian 20-something couple.

REEL TAKE: I recently noticed a pattern in my opinions of Noah Baumbach’s work. When he collaborates with his friend Wes Anderson on a writing project, I love it. However, when he serves as captain, cook and chief bottle washer, it’s a different story. As writer, director, and producer, Baumbach has made some critically acclaimed films, The Squid and the Whale among them. While I appreciate them, his DIY projects tend to hold little warmth for me. They are interesting character pieces, but rather unlikable and a tad too pretentious for my taste. That all changed with While We’re Young. In fact I think it’s one of the best pictures of the year so far. It’s early yet, but I expect that it will have a place on my top ten list at year end.

While We’re Young tells the story of a documentary filmmaker (Ben Stiller) in his mid-forties who’s at an impasse in his life. Josh is suffering a creative roadblock professionally and personally. He and his wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are adrift and slightly deadened as they enter midlife. Their friends have morphed into parental/family units, while they remain childless, which of course creates distance between them and their friends. Josh and Cornelia are the kind of couple that talk about doing great things but never actually do them. So when they meet a young 20-something couple that embodies the people they used to be and the people they aspire to be, their life together is reinvigorated and simultaneously turned on its ear.

Jamie (Adam Driver) is an aspiring documentary filmmaker who admires Josh’s earlier work. His wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried) makes boutique ice cream. They are consummate hipsters. The contrasts between the Millennial couple and the Gen-X couple are stark, noteworthy and even comical and ironic. As can be expected, all is not what it seems. But it’s through the whole journey with Darby and Jamie that Josh and Cornelia find their own truth.

Interestingly, however, Baumbach doesn’t leave it at just a personal coming-of-middle-age story. Because Josh and Cornelia inhabit the world of documentary filmmaking, that forum allows Baumbach to debate editorial and ethical integrity of documentary filmmaking in today’s on-demand, always streaming, and constantly connected world. The exploration of that truth and that dialogue seems like an entirely different concept better saved for another story altogether, but instead serves and enhances the primary story beautifully.

I like Ben Stiller, always have. But for many, his performance in While We’re Young will be a revelation. He and Baumbach previously collaborated on Greenburg, a good but cynical work (a little age is working to everyone’s advantage here). Naomi Watts and Amanda Seyfried both turn in terrific performances. It was also great to see Charles Grodin back on the big screen as Cornelia’s father. The Beastie Boys’ Adam Horowitz has a plum little role as one of Josh and Cornelia’s friends who has recently had children. For me the real revelation was Adam Driver, who worked with Baumbach on Frances Ha and has gained notoriety on the HBO show Girls.

My only real issue with the film comes at the very end of the story, but fortunately the final shot throws even that plot point into question and, in doing so, quelled my aggravation at a possibly contrived ending and instead left a smile on my face.

Rated R for language.

Review by Michelle Keenan

Woman in Gold ****

Short Take: True story of a woman attempting to recover a painting stolen from her family by the Nazis benefits from the warm chemistry between leads Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds.

REEL TAKE: The majority of critics have not been kind to Woman in Gold and, as is now often the case, I fail to see why. The film is well directed by Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn), the real life story is fascinating and compelling, there is great chemistry between the two leads Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds, and it is solidly acted by everyone else.

Woman in Gold tells the true story of Maria Altmann (Mirren) who, as an old woman, attempts to recover a priceless painting from the Austrian government that was stolen from her family by the Nazis before World War II even started. She wants it not for its value but because it is a portrait of her aunt. Since the painting is by renowned artist Gustav Klimt and is inextricably linked to pre-War Vienna, the Austrian government is determined to keep it.

Maria’s first step in attempting to get it back is to hire a young lawyer, Randol Schoenberg (Reynolds) who just happens to be the grandson of celebrated 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg. At first he is attracted by the value of the painting (over $1 million) but then it becomes more personal as the Austrian government keeps throwing obstacles in their way.

Assisting them is an Austrian lawyer (Daniel Bruhl) who is trying to make amends as his father was once a member of the Nazi party. Providing moral support is Randol’s wife Pam, well played by Katie Holmes in a part that is smaller than you would expect. In fact the movie has two other well known actors making very brief appearances. Elizabeth McGovern portrays a sympathetic judge and Jonathan Pryce portrays Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Although engaging, Woman in Gold is not without its flaws. The principal drawback is in the pacing. As my colleague Michelle Keenan astutely pointed out, the movie seems longer than it actually is. That being said, there is still so much to recommend including Curtis’ deft handling of the flashback sequences and the period recreations of 1930s Vienna. The ending could not have been better handled.

Fans of Helen Mirren and period dramas of this type will find it right up their alley while some people will learn something about stolen art and what has become of it. The film was made on a modest budget and, so far, has been a modest success. Its greatest asset is that, like the art that it is about, it will age gracefully and be just as enjoyable years from now as it is today.

Rated PG-13 for strong language and thematic materials.

Review by Chip Kaufmann